Interloper at Glencoe Read online

  His condition and his attitude frightened her, but she set her jaw to not let him know she was afraid. “You’re a Campbell, and a soldier in the employ of King William, and I dinnae recall inviting you to stay.”

  He stared at her, and through the haze of drink she finally saw his hatred of her. These past weeks he’d hidden it well, but now he revealed he was Dhomhnallach-hating Campbell to the core. He would kill her easily when the time came.

  “Aye,” he said finally.

  Nick came to take her in his arms and urge her to dance, and she knew he wanted her to forget the soldiers. She was glad to go with him in the dooryard and away from this Campbell. They danced, and he held onto her throughout the rest of the winter-short day.

  It was nearly sunset, when the cold was closing in and the guests thinning for it, that the figure of the wild faerie appeared atop the wood pile. He squatted on his heels in his ragged tunic, watching Beth. She spotted him there, across the dooryard, and stared, appalled. He hunched over his knees, a look of murder on his face. She could see he meant to make trouble.

  “What?” asked Nick, and he followed the line of her sight. When he saw the faerie he muttered a curse and dropped her hand.

  “No. Stay.” She reached for his hand again.

  “He’s got no business here.”

  “Leave him be.”

  “I’m going to get rid of him.”

  “I said, leave him be. Just like the soldiers, he’ll be more trouble if ye give him an excuse for it. Unlike them, if you let him alone he’ll simply go away.” Perhaps.

  Nick stopped trying to tug his hand away and considered that. Such a wonder to know a man who would listen to her! He said, “All right. We’ll ignore him.” He turned away and drew her toward the door of Father’s house. The remaining guests were still inside, and would more than likely talk well into the evening. Beth and Nick closed the door on that faerie and left him in the cold.

  That night, once the celebration had finally wound down and the household of Seòras MacDonald settled in to sleep, Nick slipped into bed with Beth as her husband. Dùghall said from his bunk overhead, “Fair desperate, to marry only for the sake of not having to sleep on the floor.”

  Beth knocked a fist against the boards of Dùghall’s bed, but Nick said, “Oh. Is that a mattress, Dùghall? I thought it was your sister.”

  “Och,” said Dùghall as he swung his legs off his bed to jump down, but Father stopped him.

  “Dùghall! Leave him be! Ye asked for it.”

  Dùghall muttered in Gaelic that Nick should eat the glen in its entirety, and all of Barra for good measure, but reluctantly slipped back under his blankets.

  Nick ducked his head under their blankets, and drew Beth’s nightgown hem up to her waist. Then he pressed his face to her filling belly and kissed it. Ever so softly, he whispered goodnight to the baby, then gave another kiss before restoring the gown and settling in to sleep beside his new wife.

  Chapter 18

  Being married to Nick changed everything, but it changed nothing. Beth was now charged with obedience to him, and her faith in him was now a matter of more than trust; it was a duty. Nevertheless, she had her own mind and would not—could not—treat their billeted soldiers as Nick wished. Whenever she looked at Liam, sometimes staring at him, across the room on his pallet or at her father’s table, she felt a revulsion that often brought her to the verge of throwing something at him. A Campbell in her father’s house. Liam Campbell was a tumor in that house. A lump eating away at her so she could hardly think of anything else.

  Campbell never spoke to her again of her hatred. He went about his business, coming and going from the house with his various duties. Drilling, guard duty, more drilling. Much of the soldiers’ time was spent at gatherings of their fellow soldiers in the houses of others, and Beth was glad to have them both foisted on someone else for a while. Especially since it left times during the day to be alone with Nick.

  Shy as he was about his body around other men, married life in the bunk directly beneath Dùghall’s and across the room from Father’s didn’t seem to suit him. Beth thought it rather silly, but he preferred to leave conjugal activity to odd moments during the day when the others weren’t around. He slipped away from his work to visit in the afternoon. However, silly as it seemed, it was also a pleasant break in the routine and she enjoyed it very much.

  And they talked. Though time was short and anyone of the entire glen could walk in at any moment, Beth urged Nick to linger beside her among the warm linens and blankets. The date Nick had given for the killings was only a few days away, and the closer it came, the more she longed for him to stay with her for comfort.

  “I’m afraid of that William Campbell.”

  “So am I, but he won’t hurt you.” Nick lay beside her, still with his lips against her shoulder and one hand stroking her hip, spent though he was.

  Beth tried to have faith that Nick’s account was true and that the soldier would wait until the order was given to attack before attempting to kill her, but a nagging doubt bored into her and weakened that faith. “He’s an untried boy, and a Campbell. I wouldnae trust him to even follow his destiny.”

  Nick chuckled. “You shouldn’t treat him the way you do.”

  “I’ll treat him as I please.”

  “You talk to him like you think he’s got a gun on you.”

  “And well he does.”

  “Aye, but he’s not going to see it that way. He thinks he’s just here to hang out. He doesn’t know yet what his orders are going to be.”

  “I know what they will be, and they frighten me nearly to death without the help of his gun or his sword.”

  “Maybe if you’re nice to him he’ll be unable to carry out his orders.”

  “He’s a Campbell.”

  “And you think they’re all alike?”

  “Aye.”

  Nick raised up on one elbow to look into her face. His expression was stern. “You’ve been alive long enough to know better than that. Even the MacDonalds don’t have that much of a hive mentality. Are you all thieves like Calum and his sons? Are you all great leaders like Alasdair the elder? Or all your men weaselly, irresponsible adulterers like Gòrdan?”

  “Nae, they are not.” For a moment Beth wondered if all the men in Nick’s time were such as Jerry, Karen’s husband, and those men on the TV, but put the thought out of her head. Not Nick. Never him. She couldn’t make that mistake twice.

  “Then cut the kid a break. Give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he’s not the monster you expect of him. Other folks in the glen have accepted the soldiers.”

  “And they will die for it. ’Tis their trust in humanity that will allow those monsters to rise against their hosts and murder us in our sleep.” Tears rose. She didn’t want to die, and especially she didn’t want her baby to die. “You take a chance with our child, a Neacail. You ask me to let down my guard against an evil in our home. One you’ve said yourself is destined to murder me. How can I not hate him? And how can I ever treat him as a guest?”

  Nick brushed a lock of hair from her forehead and smoothed it back neatly against her head. His voice soft in the dim, flickering room, he said, “Aye, you’re right. I can’t ask you to trust him or treat him like a guest. But do hear me. Try not to make your hatred of him so obvious. Find other things to occupy your attention when he’s around, and avoid pissing him off. Maybe then I won’t have to kill him when the time comes.”

  “I want you to kill him. At the earliest opportunity.”

  “No. Only if I have to.”

  “Is Dùghall right about you, then?”

  Anger edged his voice. “No. I’ll kill him, but only if there’s no other way to keep you safe.”

  She opened her mouth to suggest she would be the safer if Liam Campbell were dead already, but voices came from outside. Father and Dùghall, loudly discussing the half-chopped wood and noticing Nick’s absence from his chore.

  “Crap.” Nic
k sat up and reached for his sark to put it on, and Beth began to untangle her shift which had somehow become wadded up among the bedclothes. Quickly Nick dressed, ran his fingers through his hair for a semblance of orderliness, then hurried outside so Father and Dùghall could enter the house.

  Beth drew her dress over her shift and blouse, and took her time tying her laces before returning to her own chores. She would obey Nick’s wish to not anger the soldier, but he was correct that she would never be able to treat him as a guest.

  Father and Dùghall ducked through the door and into the house, chattering with each other about feed for the cattle in the byre. Father didn’t think there was enough fodder to last the winter if the stock were fed at the rate Dùghall was feeding them. Dùghall disagreed, and felt the better-fed cattle would be more likely to survive the winter. They ignored Beth as always, and it struck her that in Nick’s time she’d never been ignored this way. The men there had always spoken to her as if she were a part of everything that went on around her. Nick had always greeted her when he came home. She missed that even more than she missed the contraptions that made work so much easier than here.

  “Hello, Father. Hello, Dùghall.”

  They both stopped talking and turned to her, a bit surprised. Neither were they particularly happy about having been interrupted in their conversation. “Hello, Ealasaid,” said Father. Then he turned back to Dùghall, but her brother spoke to her.

  “No supper for us now that you’re spending your days playing patty-fingers with your new husband?”

  “Have some patience, Dùghall. You’re nae a-going to starve.” She went to the work table, tucking her hair into her kerchief as she went. “I could hardly feed my husband without feeding you as well, could I? Though the way ye treat me I expect I would like to.” Yes, she missed being spoken to gently. And as she began preparations for supper, taking the water bucket in hand for a long, cold trip to the river, she was once more aware there were many, many things to be said about Nick’s time.

  o0o

  Nick was heartily sick of chopping wood. He’d thought he was done with it when he and Beth had been living in the twenty-first century, and now he despised the sight of a seasoned piece of deadfall. Aching shoulders, jarred elbows, and sore palms were becoming an eternal part of his life. He wished he were home.

  Voices approached up the track from the forest, and though they spoke Gaelic Nick recognized them. It was the billeted soldiers. Campbell and Muirhead came into view at a stroll, their muskets slung over their shoulders and swords dangling at their sides. Returning from afternoon drill, more than likely. They chattered casually, and Nick wished he could know what they were saying. Fairly paranoid of him, but he figured a little paranoia was a good thing when people really were out to kill you.

  Muirhead peeled off from Campbell, and with a nod to Nick continued on down the track toward Achnacone. Private Liam started toward Seòras’s house, but then stopped near where Nick was swinging his ax. He watched for a moment, then said, “Congratulations on your marriage.”

  Nick didn’t pause in his work. “Thank you.”

  “May God bless you with many children.”

  For that, Nick had to stop and smile. “Sooner than you might think.”

  Liam chuckled. “Och, I see how it is. Better wed than dead, aye?”

  The smile died on Nick. “No.” His tone made clear the soldier had blundered, and a flush came to the young man’s face. “I apologize. I meant no harm, and I can see your woman is not like the other MacIains.”

  About to swing at the logs again, Nick instead set the ax head on the ground and peered at Liam. “How is she not like them?” Plain-spoken, stubborn, as eager to love as to hate, she seemed to him typical of the clan.

  “She is honest. She doesnae seem a woman who would lie to have her way.”

  “Well, no, she’ll tell you what’s what, all right. But I’ve not found the rest of them any different.”

  Liam snorted. “And how long have you known these people?”

  It took a moment to do the math, then Nick replied, “Six months or so.” Counting his time in the future with Beth.

  “Do you not know of their history?”

  “I know about Iain nan Abrach, and I know about some hangings.”

  “Oh aye, the hangings. Then you know you’ve married into the Gallows Herd. Reivers and cattle lifters, and God knows how they ever let you live in their glen without killing you for your clothes.”

  Nick refrained from volunteering they had in fact given him the clothes he was wearing, and only gazed at Liam with a bland look. The soldier took that as encouragement he should continue.

  “Do you know the reason the MacIain never signed the oath to King William?”

  “He signed it.”

  Liam blinked, taken aback, but went on. “’Tis a risk for him to venture from his glen. For he is responsible for the murder of one of his own clansmen, who was dragged from his house, stabbed, and chopped limb from limb. Even now he is a fugitive from justice on that account.”

  Nick wasn’t buying it. “If that’s true, then why doesn’t Glenlyon just arrest him?”

  “And have a pitched battle here in this glen over it? Aye, wouldn’t that be lovely!”

  The words spoken at céilidh his first night in the glen returned to Nick, that if the English came to hang MacIain for his part in the uprising, there would be a fight. A niggling suspicion came that Liam’s accusation might be true.

  The soldier continued, “I know these people well, my friend. I’ve lived in Argyll all my life and have seen their depredations.” The boy’s eyes clouded over, and his face grew taut. “My older brother was murdered by MacDonalds from this glen. He was defending his cattle, and they killed him and three other men to have the animals. I was a small boy at the time, but I remember it.”

  “So now you’ve got a score to settle?”

  “I’ve no love for MacDonalds, and I would think less of a man who married one and did not take his wife away from her thieving, murdering relatives.”

  The offense raised hair at the back of Nick’s neck. For a moment he didn’t speak, then he said slowly, softly, “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t give a damn what you think about me.”

  Liam’s lips pressed together. Then without any further words he went into the house.

  o0o

  Beth knew Nick was considering taking her away from Glencoe on the eleventh. Since the day they’d returned home, the way he kept gazing at the surrounding mountains, and sometimes he would ask casual questions about what lay beyond them, it was plain he was looking for a way to not kill the soldier. But there was more to think about than just her own life.

  Later that afternoon as she soaked the salt beef for supper, she looked up as Nick came through the door with an armful of wood and told him, “I won’t go.”

  “What?” He had wood from the pile outside for her to stoke the fire for supper. Father and Dùghall were away at the white house for a talk with the laird, and so they were alone again.

  “If you try to make me leave, I won’t go.”

  “I’m your husband. If I say—”

  “I still willnae go, and you cannot make me. I cannot abandon my father and brother to this.” The memory of the vision of her father absent from his chair made her shiver.

  Nick laid the wood on the floor, knelt beside it, and began tending the fire. “There’s nothing you can do for them. You don’t even know if they are in any danger.”

  “I will make certain they are not.”

  The edge of frustration came to his voice, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “You don’t have that power!”

  “I cannot leave them! We must make certain they get away.”

  “Beth!”

  “And if we were to leave, where would we go?”

  “I have some cash I’ve saved, and we don’t need to go far. Just away from the shooting. Just far enough that they won’t hurt you.”


  “But they will kill my father.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, Nick. It was his voice I heard when I touched the book.” Nick’s face went white. “And the day before we were married I saw him missing from his chair.”

  “Huh?”

  “I saw an empty chair where he was sitting at that moment. ’Tis an omen, meaning he will die soon.”

  Several things to say crossed his face, and finally he said, “But you still can’t know for sure he’ll die.”

  “I won’t let it happen. If fate can be cheated, then I will do it. If it cannae, then I’m fated to die in any case. Leaving will accomplish naught.”

  He looked away, and his jaw clenched in knots. Neither said anything for what seemed an eternity. Then he reached for another piece of wood and placed it on the fire. He said nothing further, and Beth understood she’d won the argument at the cost of his company. She returned to her chores. Nick finished with the fire and left the house.

  The instant he was out of earshot, a voice came from nowhere. “Fate is a tricky thing, lassie.”

  She spun, startled, to find Fionn Coigreach squatting on his heels atop Muirhead’s pallet on the floor. “You.”

  “Aye, me. Ye ken who I am, then?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “And how might ye? I’ve never spoken to ye before. Tell me how a mortal such as yerself would know so much of the wee folk as to see us when we dinnae wish to be seen?”

  “You showed yourself in the book.”

  “What book?”

  “The one...” Her eyes narrowed as she realized she’d spoken to this faerie in the future but not in this time. He wouldn’t remember speaking to her, because he hadn’t done it yet. “Never you mind, what book. I cannae read in any case. So, why is it you’re showing yourself to me now?”

  “The one you married is nae for you.”

  “Says you.”

  “Aye, says me, and I would know best. I ken ye better than anyone could, for I’ve loved ye far longer.”